Tag: Ronald Reagan

Obama to Cut US Military to Pre-World War II Levels. [Neville Chamberlain Lives!]

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

MILITARY CUTS, OBAMA CARTOONSI think all of us here share the belief that we have to maintain the strongest military on the planet, that we have to support our troops and make sure that they are properly trained, properly equipped, that they are provided with a mission that allows them to succeed. All of us here also agree that the strength of our military has to be combined with the wisdom and force of our diplomacy and that we are going to be committed to rebuilding and strengthening alliances around the world to advance American interests and American security.- President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama, while introducing his National Security Team on December 1, 2008

All of Obama’s promises come with expiration dates.

That was then. This is now: Obama has ordered his Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, to offer a budget proposal which would reduce America’s Military prowess by 1/8th, taking it down to Pre-World War II levels.

Yahoo News reports that

The proposed 13 percent reduction in the army would be carried out by 2017, a senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The spending plan is the first to “fully reflect” a transition away from a war footing that has been in place for 13 years, Hagel said at a press conference.

The plan comes amid growing fiscal pressures and after years of protracted counter-insurgency campaigns, which saw the army reach a peak of more than 566,000 troops in 2010.

Having withdrawn US forces from Iraq in 2011, President Barack Obama has promised to end America’s combat role in Afghanistan by the end of this year

The proposed cut in manpower along with plans to retire some older aircraft and reform benefits for troops could run into stiff resistance in Congress.

A senior US military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the political challenge.

“We’re going to need some help from our elected representatives to get this budget across the finish line,” the officer said.

Several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee immediately expressed reservations about the budget proposal.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, who sits on the committee, said the proposals had the “potential to harm America’s military readiness.”

The Pentagon had previously planned to downsize the ground force to about 490,000.

But Hagel warned that to adapt to future threats “the army must accelerate the pace and increase the scale of its post-war drawdown.

Hagel also said the army national guard and reserves would be cut by five percent.

The smaller force would entail some “added risk” but it would still be able to defeat an adversary in one region while also “supporting” air and naval operations in another, he said.

The Pentagon for years had planned to ensure the army could fight two major wars at the same time but that doctrine has been abandoned.

Distinguished American Veteran, Former United States Representative Lt. Col. Allen B. West wrote the following, concerning this announcement:

Instead of “investing” in the most important task of our federal government — providing for the common defense — we shall now focus on “investing” in the expansion of the welfare nanny-state. There is no doubt where President Obama’s priorities lie.

We have departed from the maxim of “peace through strength” to a belief in “appeasement through weakness.” Obama somehow believes kumbaya is a strategic objective. And don’t give me the crap about drones, because we learned during Vietnam that a president should not be directing strikes from the White House – implemented by another failed progressive president, Lyndon Baines Johnson.

We should be examining how we create the capability and capacity to meet the challenges of the enemy globally. That means looking at each geographic AOR (Area of Responsibility; CENTCOM, AFRICOM, EUCOM, PACOM, SOUTHCOM, NORTHCOM) and ensuring they have the appropriate level of force mix to meet the threats in their AORs.

We don’t need massive endeavors into new technologies, we need a massive focus on capability to meet and defeat the enemy by way of deterrence. Of course I support the defense industry, but the defense industry shouldn’t be the drivers of our national security strategy.

For Obama and Hagel to believe taking the US Army down to pre-World War II levels is a smart decision evidences their abject stupidity in comprehending the global conflagrations in which we are embroiled — the enemy has a vote. This whole inane statement about “pivoting to the Asian-Pacific rim” is more empty rhetoric as we decimate our US Naval strength while China builds theirs.

Barack Hussein Obama cannot be seen as a Commander-in-Chief and I will never refer to him that way. His fundamental transformation of America means weakening our nation and leaving our Republic less secure. I can just imagine how appreciative and elated his Muslim Brotherhood friends are at this point, to include Turkey’s President Erdogan, as well as the mad mullahs in Iran.

Spot on.

The greatest American President in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan, once said, 

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

Reagan was a realist. He realized that, as President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt once advised, the best way to keep America safe, is to “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. Unfortunately for us, we are presently suffering through a president who speaks like a wuss and carries a feather pillow….and a prayer rug.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Senate Wants Obama to “Stand Firm” Against Putin About the Ukraine. Fat Chance.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamaputinSo, with the Mid-East already a smoldering ash heap thanks to “Arab Spring” and “Smart Power”, is Eastern Europe next?

Fox News reports that

Top Senate Republicans on Sunday told President Obama to send a “clear” message to Russia President Vladimir Putin to stay out of Ukraine’s political crisis, renewing criticism about the president’s foreign policy and his negotiations with the powerful Russian leader.

“I believe the president needs to up his game and send a clear unequivocal public message to Putin not to interfere in what is happening in Ukraine,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.” “This is an opportunity for the president to really be unequivocal with Putin right now.”

The months of political upheaval in Ukraine have divided some residents between aligning with Russia or Western nations, a situation now being portrayed as a de facto power struggle between Obama and Putin, who appear on opposite sides of several world issues, including the Syria crisis.

Obama vowed in June 2010 to “reset” relations with Russia in an effort to help solve international problems and improve the world economy. But four years later, little appears to have improved.

“It’s time to reset the reset,” Ayotte said.

Critics of the Obama administration’s foreign policy say Putin has had the upper hand in efforts to end Syria’s 3-year-long civil war because Russia is a major ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which has allowed him to remain in power and keep a large part of his chemical weapons cache.

Such critics are also bristling over Putin allowing former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked U.S. government secrets, to live in Russia.

Still, Obama said the situation in Ukraine is about residents being able to make decisions for themselves and not about “some Cold War chessboard.”

Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the president talked Friday with Putin and that they agreed that a political settlement in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, should ensure the unity of the country and the right of Ukrainians to express their free will.

This weekend, the Ukraine parliament declared President Yanukovych unable to carry out constitutional duties.

…Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a frequent critic of Obama’s foreign policy, said the United States needs to be clear with Putin that Ukrainians must be allowed to determine their own future and that partitioning the nation would be unacceptable.

“They want to be Western,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “That’s what this whole hundreds of thousands in the square was all about. They don’t want to be Eastern.”

McCain also said an array of Ukrainians in the opposition movement are overjoyed but worried about the economy. And he suggested Putin should be “a little nervous” now that the Olympics are over and his residents — “tired of crony capitalism” — might follow neighboring Ukrainians.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ind., the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, defended Obama, saying he, like every new U.S. president, has tried to negotiate with Putin, who has been a threat for many decades.

He also told “Fox News” the administration will have a challenging time in Ukraine because Russia has the “trump card” of supplying the country with natural gas.

The problem with the Senators’ wishes, is the fact that we have Neville Chamberlain in office, when we need Winston Churchill.

Or…

President Ronald Reagan, who gave a speech, concerning our relationship with Russia, on March 8 1983, which has since come to be called “The Evil Empire Speech”. His words ring as true today, as they ever have.

During my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas—that’s their name for religion—or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.

Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930s. We see it too often today.

This doesn’t mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them. I intend to do everything I can to persuade them of our peaceful intent, to remind them that it was the West that refused to use its nuclear monopoly in the forties and fifties for territorial gain and which now proposes 50-percent cut in strategic ballistic missiles and the elimination of an entire class of land-based, intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

At the same time, however, they must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom.

…It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable “Screwtape Letters,” wrote: “The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”

Well, because these “quiet men” do not “raise their voices,” because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making “their final territorial demand,” some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority.

While America’s military strength is important, let me add here that I’ve always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.

…Whittaker Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a witness to one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote that the crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second oldest faith, first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, “Ye shall be as gods.”

The Western World can answer this challenge, he wrote, “but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism’s faith in Man.”

President Reagan knew that, one day, the struggle against Marxist Ideology would not just be waged externally, against foreign enemies, but internally, against domestic ones, as well…bureaucrats who would give away our very sovereignty for perceived political expediency. As we have seen in the ongoing Middle East Islamic Fundamentalist Revolution, known as Arab Spring, and, more recently, President Obama and Sec. Kerry’s bungling of Syria and Iran, our enemies, like Vladimir Putin, love this present administration, who are more than willing to “negotiate” with their new-found “friends”.

And, much like the small town fellow, who gets conned into a three-card monte game on the sidewalks of New York, the deck is stacked against us.

Until He Comes,

KJ

America and the Son of God

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

American FreedomI have been writing a lot lately about the Culture War going on in our nation and the war between Christianity and those who would rather our nation ignore the “Faith of Our Fathers”, because if we do, we are a more subservient to the will of those who stride the Halls of Power.

Unfortunately for “The New Pharisees”, us darn American Christians are still alive and well, by the Grace of God.

According to The Hollywood Reporter,

Church groups are seeking to take over entire theaters for opening night screenings of Son of God, the upcoming movie about the life of Jesus Christ.

Various religious organizations throughout the country have been buying out screens and distributing tickets to groups of thousands of people for “Theater Take-Overs” on Thursday, Feb. 27, the night before the film’s officially released, according to production company Lightworkers Media.

Crossroads Church in Cincinnati is bringing thousands of people to a Cinemark theater, where Son of God will be showing on 13 screens at the same time.

“Our church bought out every screen in the theater,” Crossroads’ Brian Wells said in a statement. If anyone comes to the theater to see another movie that night, they’ll be out of luck, unless we have a few extra tickets to give them!”

There are a few other theater buyouts for Son of God scheduled at Cinemark locations throughout the country, according to the theater chain’s marketing and communications head James Meredith.

“It’s very interesting to see this level of excitement around the movie,” Meredith said in a statement. “The interest level for meetings, events, screenings and buyouts seems to be on par with that of major blockbuster, tentpole or franchise movies.”

Mega-church pastor Rick Warren is buying out screens in eight different theaters throughout Orange County.

“I’ve seen most of the films about Jesus produced in the past 50 years, and Son of God is the best,“ Warren said in a statement. “We’re excited Jesus is back on the big screen, and we’re going to fill the theaters. I want every other faith leader in America to do the same. Whether you can buy out a whole theater, or just one screen, now is the time to show up. This is a rare opportunity to bring the story of Christ into our mainstream culture. We want to see Jesus in movie theaters where sight and sound can open up our senses and let grace come in. The message of the Gospel deserves to be on the big screen – and this is our chance to see it there.”

Other churches and organizations, ranging in size from 10,000 to 4 million, are distributing tickets for a “Theater Take-Over.” Some pastors will also buy out screens showing the film in Spanish and Korean. There’s even a Catholic “Theater Take-Over” planned for Miami.

Various business leaders throughout the country are also donating tickets to churches and non-profits.

Son of God is a version of the hit Bible miniseries, featuring new and used footage, focused just on the story of Jesus Christ. The Bible averaged 11.4 million viewers during its five-week run on the History channel and became the top-selling miniseries on DVD of all time.

What a concept.  A movie about the life of Jesus Christ, aimed at attracting the 75%  majority of Americans who proclaim Christ as their Savior.

Why, next thing you’ll be telling me is that a well-known Hollywood actor will also produce a movie about the Life, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, with English sub-titles, which will stay in release for 156 days, and bring in a worldwide gross of $611, 899,420.

Oh, wait…

I am a Christian American Conservative. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I will not apologize for the greatest country on Earth.

There has been a lot of conversation during the reign of Barack Hussein Obama The First, within the ranks of American Conservatives. In-fighting about what political philosophy and attitude to take. Should Conservatism be abandoned for the same kind of pseudo-intellectual arrogance and snarkiness that the Liberals practice with regularity and glee?

Or should Americans embrace Conservatism? Which kind of Conservatism? Fiscal? Social? Beltway/Moderate/Independent (a.k.a. Squishy)?

The Republican Party has been practicing “Squishy” Conservatism since the Clinton Administration. We are currently living with the consequences of that. Practicing this political philosophy of relative ethics and relative morality is akin to building a house on shifting sand.

Americans do not tolerate vacillating leaders for very long. Look at the problems besetting The Magnificent One, Barack “Scooter” Obama. Few Americans, except for his Far Left sycophantic base, are still buying the “Hope and Change” he is selling. And, they are upset with him because all of his promises of a “Socialist Paradise” have proven to be empty ones,

He even tried to reach out to the rank and file of his party and the Independents (one or two) who still might support him by attending church a few times over the years, such as on Easter Sunday when, once again, he held a photo op at Allen Chapel, a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded shortly after the Civil War. These actions came from the man who once said, “Whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation…” and who regularly worships at the Sanctuary of the Holy Basketball Court and kneels at the Sacred Putting Green. But I digress…

Conservatives have a great opportunity ahead of us this November. But we will blow it if we do not present a united front. Our country is under siege from enemies, internal and external, that want to turn the “shining city on a hill” into a third-world barrio. We don’t have time for Internet Flame Wars, questioning the legitimacy of each other’s Conservatism. Nor do we have the luxury of wasting time ridiculing another Conservative for being old-fashioned or Christian. It’s time to man up. The barbarians have knocked down the gate and they are ransacking our homes. They have burdened future generations with a tax burden that may be insurmountable.

For our children’s children’s sake, we must politically repel these invaders who wish to make us subservient to their failed ideology.

It is time for America to reclaim Our Heritage and, there is only one way in which we will be able to succeed: and that, is through the Power and Grace of the One Who Made Us and Bestowed Upon Us this Sacred Land.

I wish to leave you with the words of the greatest American President in my lifetime. There are those who say he wasn’t a believer. I beg to differ.

“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.“

“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

“We are never defeated unless we give up on God.”

“We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.”

“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”

“Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.” – President Ronald Reagan 2/6/11-6/5/04

Until He Comes,

KJ

Sochi Olympics: NBC, the National Bolshevik Channel, Praises Putin and Russia

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics4 Comments

NBC Communist Logo

NBC, the Broadcast Network which brought into our homes American Legends Bob Hope, Johnny Carson David Brinkley, and John Chancellor, is now singing the praises of the ideology of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

During NBC’s Thursday Night Coverage of the Sochi Olympics, the insufferable Bob Costas said,

Just in the past year, Putin brokered a deal to allow Syria to avoid a U.S. military strike by giving up its chemical weapons…And helped bring Iran to the negotiating table over its nuclear intentions.

The pro-Stalinist Propaganda Canmpaign of the National Bolshevik Channel continued last night, with these words of narration,

The towering presence, the empire that ascended to affirm a colossal footprint. The revolution that birthed one of modern history’s pivotal experiments. But if politics has long shaped our sense of who they are, it’s passion that endures. As a more reliable right to their collective heart. What they build in aspirations lifted by imagination. What they craft, through the wonder of every last detail. How magical the fusion of sound and movement can be. How much a glass of distilled perfection and an overflowing table can matter. Discover the Russian people through these indelible signatures. Discover what we share with them through the games that open here tonight.

During his nationally syndicated radio program yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said,

Why is everybody surprised that NBC News would laud praise over a Soviet KGB leader, when they are his prisoner for two weeks as the televising network? Besides that, there’s not that much ideological difference anyway. People are apparently upset that Costas referred to Putin as a peacemaker. Folks, that’s right. What do you think liberals think of communists? They’re blood brothers!

The communists were the peacemakers.

We were the problem.

We were the ones stirring the drink. We were the ones stirring things up. We were the threat. Reagan’s finger was on the nuclear button. We were always the problem; Gorbachev was always the solution. So here comes Putin, and he’s a tough guy, and he’s being called a peacemaker around the world. That’s not a stretch. I got people coming to this realization. I guess it may be a bit of a positive. It may not. For me, it’s unsurprising.

As usual, El Rushbo was exactly right.

NBC’s anti-American point-of-view has been extremely obvious for the past several years.

For example, I related the following on June 20, 2011:

Yesterday, on Father’s day 2011, NBC utilized their impeccable taste and creative skills to put together what they perceived as an electrifying, patriotic opening for the United States Open Golf Championship.

The opening featured a reading of the Pledge of Allegiance by a group of children in a classroom.

That would have been enough to stir the patriotic soul of even the most callous observer, right?

Wrong!

It stirred up Americans’ sense of Patriotism, alright. The idiots at NBC edited out the phrase UNDER GOD!

This is what viewers of the golf tournament heard:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, with liberty and justice for all.

And once was not enough for NBC. They did it twice!

The kids actually recited the pledge two times. NBC edited the second version to not only leave out UNDER GOD, but ONE NATION, as well.

To say that Americans got stirred up is probably an understatement. Immediately, viewers took to Twitter and internet comment boards, calling NBC “scumbugs” and pledging to boycott the network.

Of course, once they realized that the overwhelming majority of America’s did not appreciate their selective editing, NBC tried to feebly apologize.

By now, some of you may be thinking that NBC leaving God out of the Pledge of Allegiance and their praising of Putin and Communism have nothing to do with one another.

As the late great Ed McMahon, an employee of NBC, would phrase it,

You are NOT correct, sir!

On March 8, 1983, the greatest United States President in my lifetime, Ronald Wilson Reagan, during a speech now known as the “Evil Empire Speech”,  which he gave before the National Association of Evangelicals,  said,

During my first press conference as president, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas–that’s their name for religion–or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.

Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930s. We see it too often today.

…Whittaker Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a witness to one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote that the crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second-oldest faith, first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, “Ye shall be as gods.”

The Western world can answer this challenge, he wrote, “but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism’s faith in Man.”

I believe we shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last–last pages even now are being written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man. For in the words of Isaiah: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no…might He increased strength. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.”

Unfortunately, even with the demise of the old Soviet Union, the shadow of Communism still looms over Russia. 

However, I, like Ronaldus Magnus did, believe that they, as every other unjust and tyrannical unjust government has been, will be overthrown by men and women yearning to be free from oppression’s shackles.

Because God is still in control…whether the communists ruling Russia, and their lackeys at NBC and “the smartest people in the room” choose to believe in Him or not.

I know how all of this ends. I’ve read The Book.

Until He Comes,

KJ

From Reagan to Rubio: The Wussification of the Republican Party

On By kingsjesterIn Politics19 Comments

Cartoon-Cruz-Vs-Establishment-600I started this Blog back in April of 2010 as a way of venting my frustration with what I saw happening in the greatest country on God’s Green Earth.

I could not believe what was going on around me. The American People had elected an incompetent, pompous, didactic, divisive, self-involved, Marxist idiot to the most important position in the world: the Presidency of the United States.

The Federal Government, under the leadership of Barack Hussein Obama, and his partners in crime, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, was headed down the road to full-blown socialism, faster than Rosie O’Donnell heading to Golden Corral.

Gradually, from seemingly out of nowhere, a movement began. It wasn’t a Liberal “Astroturf” movement…it was a groundswell, started by average Americans, who were fed up with being over-taxed and under-represented by the people whom they had elected and sent to Washington to SERVE THEM.

As the movement began to take place, it was clear that this was a CONSERVATIVE movement…and a PATRIOTIC one…as they took the name “TEA Party” which stood for “Taxed Enough Already”. Just as the Colonials, who revolted against the King of England, these Americans were, and still are, fighting against “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”.

I remain proud of these Americans. As a fellow Conservative and TEA Party Supporter, they remind me of the Republican Party of my young adulthood, when, in November of 1980, at the age of 21 and 11 months, I cast my very first vote for the greatest President of my generation, Ronald Wilson Reagan. The TEA Party reminds me of the way Republicans, led by Ronaldus Magnus, were back then: plain-spoken, good-humored, honest-to-a-fault, servants of the people, whom you were just as likely to find at St. Peter’s Orphanage’s Annual Picnic in Memphis, TN, as you were at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

In fact, I and my fiancee sent a wedding invitation to President and Mrs. Reagan, and got back and official congratulations card, signed by them, from the Office of Protocol.

The Obamas think “class” is something they skipped to go “choom”.

But, I digress…

The blemish on Reagan’s record that Liberals from both sides of the aisle, are bring up right now, is his passage of a law granting Amnesty to illegal aliens.

Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 because he strongly believed that it was time to gain control of U.S. borders and to enforce legal hiring at workplaces.

The amnesty of 3 million illegal immigrants that came with it was relatively small, and never would have resulted in 11 million new immigrants in the decades that followed had the rest of the law’s requirements been fulfilled by Congress.

Of course, they weren’t.

According to Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, amnesty was in fact Reagan’s biggest regret, per a story in the Heritage Times, because he, like the people who supported him, believed in the rule of law.

As the halcyon days of the Reagan Administration passed by, and time moved on, the Republican Party slowly, but surely, began to distance themselves from us rubes living out here in America’s Heartland, otherwise known as “Flyover Country”.

And, as they became more isolated from the people they were supposed to be serving, they started losing elections. Sure, Dubya was elected for two terms (Thank God.), but, can you imagine either Al Gore or John Kerry as President? Without throwing up, that is?

With the election of Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), and with the Democrats controlling both the House and Senate,this nation was taken on a madcap plunge toward socialism faster than Elvis going down the last hill on the Zippin Pippin at the old Mid-South Fairgrounds.

And then, Americans stood up on their hind legs and started the TEA Party Movement.

Obama and the Democrats, and the Status Quo-loving Establishment Republicans, could not believe their eyes. “What was this mess? How dare these sheep break away from the flock!”

While Obama and the Democrats attacked us every which-way they could think us, accusing us of RAAACIIISM, carrying guns to rallies, etc., the “Moderate” Republicans, played it very cagey. They used the TEA Party during the months leading up to the 2010 Mid-terms, to get themselves elected, and win back the House of Representatives, on the promise that they would govern “Conservatively”.

Allow me to pause for a moment and say this: I am not speaking about actual Reagan Conservatives and TEA Party Members like Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and sometimes, Rand Paul. I am speaking of those Vichy Republicans, like John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Marco Rubio, who should just switch parties, and get it over with.

In the two years since the TEA Party propelled them to victory in the Mid-terms, the Establishment Republicans, who rode our coat tails back to the Halls of Power, have increasingly treated us badly, at first, shunning Conservatives like we were red-headed step-children, and now, insulting and degrading us like we are lepers…or their enemy.

And now, with Obama failing miserably, tanking in every single Popularity Poll, making about as much sense as a punch-drunk boxer, the Republicans appear ready to commit mass seppuku (hari kari), as I wrote yesterday, “snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory”  by pushing for Amnesty for illegal aliens, in order to supply their Big Money Donors, in the US Chamber of Commerce, with cheap labor.

In fact, that’s not the only issue that the Vichy Republicans are wussing out on…and it has Senator Ted Cruz worried, as he told Breitbart.com:

Cruz questioned how establishment Republicans unilaterally caving to Democrats on everything from the farm bill to the budget to the debt ceiling and more could think amnesty is a good idea at this time.

“Right now, Republican leadership in both chambers is aggressively urging members to stand down on virtually every front: on the continuing resolution, on the budget, on the farm bill, on the debt ceiling,” Cruz said in a statement provided exclusively to Breitbart News on Thursday.

He continued:

They may or may not be right, but their argument is that we should focus exclusively on Obamacare and on jobs. In that context, why on earth would the House dive into immigration right now? It makes no sense, unless you’re Harry Reid. Republicans are poised for an historic election this fall–a conservative tidal wave much like 2010. The biggest thing we could do to mess that up would be if the House passed an amnesty bill–or any bill perceived as an amnesty bill–that demoralized voters going into November. Rather than responding to the big-money lobbying on K Street, we need to make sure working-class Americans show up by the millions to reject Obamacare and vote out the Democrats. Amnesty will ensure they stay home.

Cruz added that granting amnesty now–while wrong in his opinion at any time–would ensure Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remains in his position in after the 2014 elections.

“Amnesty is wrong in any circumstance, and if we are going to fix our broken immigration system–and we should–it makes much more sense to do so next year, so that we are negotiating a responsible solution with a Republican Senate majority rather than with Chuck Schumer,” Cruz said. “Anyone pushing an amnesty bill right now should go ahead and put a ‘Harry Reid for Majority Leader’ bumper sticker on their car, because that will be the likely effect if Republicans refuse to listen to the American people and foolishly change the subject from Obamacare to amnesty.”

I wish we had a Senate full of Ted Cruzs and Mike Lees.

Ronald Reagan once quipped,

The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.

Evidently, that applies to Vichy Republicans, as well.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Senate Democrats Vote to Cut Military Pensions Benefits…Keep IRS Credit for Illegal Immigrants.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

veterans marchIf you ask any average American, out here in the Real World, which we refer to as the Heartland of America, if they think that Pension Benefits to our Military Veterans who have defended our freedom, should be cut, in order to keep an IRS Credit for Illegal Immigrants, they would look at you as if you were wearing your underwear on top of your head and their answer to your question would not just be “no”, but H@ll, no!

Evidently, Senate Democrats prefer to protect “benefits” for those who have entered our country illegally, instead of taking care of  those who have fought to protect and defend our freedom.

Foxnews.com reports that

A final effort by Senate Republicans to halt cuts to pensions of military retirees failed late Tuesday, after Democrats blocked an amendment to the controversial budget bill.

The two-year budget agreement, which cleared a key test vote earlier in the day, was expected to get a final vote no later than Wednesday.

Ahead of the final vote, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., tried unsuccessfully to use a parliamentary tactic to force a vote on the amendment, which he wrote to undo the cuts for military retirees.

A provision in the already House-passed bill would cut retirement benefits for military retirees by $6 billion over 10 years.

Sessions wanted to instead eliminate an estimated $4.2 billion in annual spending by reining in an IRS credit that illegal immigrants have claimed.

He and fellow senators argued the bill unfairly sticks veterans and other military retirees with the cost of new spending.

“It’s not correct, and it should not happen,” Sessions said on the floor.

“By blocking my amendment, they voted to cut pensions for wounded warriors,” he said afterwards. “Senators in this chamber have many valid ideas for replacing these pension cuts, including my proposal to close the tax welfare loophole for illegal filers, and all deserved a fair and open hearing. But they were denied.”

Sessions’ office claimed the vote Tuesday to block the amendment was a vote to “cut military pensions instead of cutting welfare for illegal immigrants.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash.,who brokered the budget deal with House counterpart Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., argued the GOP effort was really an attempt to kill the entire bill.

The Republican-led House passed the bill last week in an effort to avoid another stalemate leading to a potential government shutdown, like the one in October that polls showed was largely unpopular with voters.

Where was the GOP Leadership in the Senate? You know, The Sunshine Boys, McCain and McConnell? Why weren’t they supporting Sen. Sessions?

After the House passed the Budget “Compromise” last week, Rush Limbaugh made the following astute observation:

The Republicans are scared to death to say anything critical of Obama and the Democrats. And they’ll do anything to avoid a government shutdown, including giving Obama what he wants, which we just saw.

Back on October 20th, Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wrote these words in an Op Ed, posted on Breitbart.com. They fit what is happening, regarding the Budget Issue, perfectly:

…GOP politicians claim they’re against Obamacare and promise to repeal it. But when it came time to stand up and use the Constitutional tools they have – the power of the purse strings – to finally halt the implementation, they balked, waved the white flag, and joined the lapdog media in trashing the good guys who fought for us.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, these same politicians are covertly pushing through amnesty despite evidence that the 33 million newly legalized voters will overwhelmingly lean Democrat! Obviously this makes the likelihood of a GOP hat trick electoral victory, and hence the repeal of socialized healthcare, even more improbable.

The media wants you to believe that the partial government shutdown “fractured” the Republican machine from grassroots commonsense conservatives who go by the acronym TEA Party (that stands for “Taxed Enough Already”). No, Tea Party patriots rose up because the Republican machine “fractured” itself years ago by marginalizing its conservative base. The recent “slimdown” didn’t cause the fracture. It happened because of the fracture – because wayward Republicans have refused for years to stand up and fight for economic freedom and limited government, despite campaigning on those principles every election cycle. That’s how we got into this debt-ridden mess in the first place. They campaigned one way, but governed another.

It’s the establishment’s choice whether this fracture remains unfixed because the conservative grassroots will never give up the fight for freedom. Never. Never. Generations of our sons and daughters sent off to war to protect our freedom have paid too high a price for us to ever give up the fight.

As the Republican Establishment continues to propagate its “Live to fight another day” theme in all of its cave-ins to the wishes of Congressional Democrats, they would be wise to remember the words of the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan, who said,

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

It is time for the Vichy Republicans to put down their pacifiers and MAN UP.

…If they want to keep their jobs.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Reaction to the House Budget Bill: Sarah…Plain [Spoken] and [Standing] Tall

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

pailinbiggulp2Yesterday afternoon, the Vichy Republican-led House of Representatives passed the “Bi-partisan” Budget Proposal, co-authored by Democrat Patti Murray and Former Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate, Paul Ryan.

By passing the bill the House Republicans turned their backs on the Conservative Base, which gave them control of the House through their votes during the Political Massacre known as Mid-Term Elections of 2010.

This current wave of attacks by Progressives, in both political partie,s is not some sort of new phenomena. They have been attempting to stifle Conservatism in American for quite some time now.

The following excerpt is taken from Ronald Reagan Speech titled “A Time For Choosing”.

This speech was given as a stump speech, at speaking engagements, and on a memorable night in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign.

Almost 50 years later, The Great Communicators’ words ring as true now, as when they were first spoken.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Reagan gave Progressive Politicians Hissy Fits with his Optimistic Conservatism and his ability to deliver powerful speeches in a way that average Americans could clearly understand and relate to.

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin remains popular in the Heartland of America and unpopular in the Northeast Corridor and on the Left Coast, for a that very same  reason:  She says out loud what average Americans are thinking.

For example, here is an article she has written for breitbart.com…

No one can argue with the fact that Paul Ryan’s compromise budget bill raises taxes and increases spending. Show me one Republican who got elected on that platform. Spare America the Orwellian word games. If the government is taking money out of your pocket to fund its growing Big Brother operations, it’s a tax. Whether money is taken from you via your phone bill, your airline ticket, or your income, it’s a tax. If politicians can’t be honest about this, it’s time to go home.

The TEA Party’s very acronym stands for “Taxed Enough Already.” We sent these politicians to Congress in an historic landslide election in 2010 with a mandate to stop the runaway spending train bankrupting our nation, not to wave to it from the station or – heaven forbid – increase its speed. And yet, here we are still pretending that there are no real world consequences to running up near trillion dollar deficits year after year with no end in sight.

So, where does this leave us? We can sit back and accept the increased spending “Compromised Plan” with increases in taxes and spending, or we can charge ahead to at least preserve the very modest Sequester cuts American workers already fought for. If we go with the first option, we simply kick the can down the road yet again and wait for the inevitable real world consequences of bankruptcy (see Detroit for an example of what’s in store). Or we can go with the second option and probably get clobbered by the media (so what’s new?!).

The Political Establishment will no doubt tell us that a budget battle will distract us from the fight against Obamacare. But that excuse is just the latest variation in the Establishment’s old canard that they’re keeping their powder dry for the next big battle which never seems to materialize because they’re always too busy waving the white flag and following the path of least resistance until election day.

Enough is enough!

Here’s the deal, folks. The media will clobber us no matter what. We do not want more taxes. We want Congress to rein in spending and live within its means. (What’s so radical about that?!) Americans have gotten quite an education recently in wasteful government spending as we’ve all seen how the federal government can blow a billion dollars on a website that doesn’t work.

Do these members of Congress really think they can justify every tax dollar they spend and still demand more from hard working Americans by increasing our taxes?

2014 is just around the corner. If any member of Congress thinks raising taxes and increasing wasteful spending is a winning strategy to run on, then by all means they should vote for the Ryan budget. We’ll be watching.

Just as Reagan used the Bully Pulpit of the Presidency to bypass the Progressive Politicians and Main Stream Media of his time, and talked directly to the American People, so does Sarah Palin use today’s New Media very effectively.

The Arctic Fox is refreshing and Honest…and, she drives Progressives like John Boehner, Harry Reid, and President Barack Hussein Obama. Plus, she is not a private citizen, unencumbered by the Political Straight Jacket that her own partner placed upn her in the 2008 Elections.

Don’t like her? Too bad.

This is Sarah…Plain [spoken] and [standing] Tall.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Russian Spy Towers in America? This is “Smart Power”?

On By kingsjesterIn Uncategorized2 Comments

obama and putinIf you see an innocent-looking structure with a dome-topped tower, behind a security fence, as you are traveling through America, it won’t be a cell tower.

It will be here “From Russia With Love, courtesy of the same bureaucratic buffoons who brought us “Smart Power!”

In recent months, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen of these structures, known as monitor stations, on United States soil, several American officials said.

They fear that these structures could help Russia spy on the United States and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said. These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow’s version of the Global Positioning System, the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and thirsty smartphone users to the nearest Starbucks.

“They don’t want to be reliant on the American system and believe that their systems, like GPS, will spawn other industries and applications,” said a former senior official in the State Department’s Office of Space and Advanced Technology. “They feel as though they are losing a technological edge to us in an important market. Look at everything GPS has done on things like your phone and the movement of planes and ships.”

The Russian effort is part of a larger global race by several countries — including China and European Union nations — to perfect their own global positioning systems and challenge the dominance of the American GPS.

For the State Department, permitting Russia to build the stations would help mend the Obama administration’s relationship with the government of President Vladimir V. Putin, now at a nadir because of Moscow’s granting asylum to Mr. Snowden and its backing of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

But the C.I.A. and other American spy agencies, as well as the Pentagon, suspect that the monitor stations would give the Russians a foothold on American territory that would sharpen the accuracy of Moscow’s satellite-steered weapons. The stations, they believe, could also give the Russians an opening to snoop on the United States within its borders.

The squabble is serious enough that administration officials have delayed a final decision until the Russians provide more information and until the American agencies sort out their differences, State Department and White House officials said.

Russia’s efforts have also stirred concerns on Capitol Hill, where members of the intelligence and armed services committees view Moscow’s global positioning network — known as Glonass, for Global Navigation Satellite System — with deep suspicion and are demanding answers from the administration.

“I would like to understand why the United States would be interested in enabling a GPS competitor, like Russian Glonass, when the world’s reliance on GPS is a clear advantage to the United States on multiple levels,” said Representative Mike D. Rogers, Republican of Alabama, the chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee.

Mr. Rogers last week asked the Pentagon to provide an assessment of the proposal’s impact on national security. The request was made in a letter sent to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry and the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr.

The monitor stations have been a high priority of Mr. Putin for several years as a means to improve Glonass not only to benefit the Russian military and civilian sectors but also to compete globally with GPS.

The kicker is, of course, we have no satellite towers located within Russia.

President Ronald Reagan, gave a speech, concerning our relationship with Russia, on March 8 1983, which has since come to be called “The Evil Empire Speech”. His words ring as true today, as they ever have.

During my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas—that’s their name for religion—or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.

Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930s. We see it too often today.

This doesn’t mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them. I intend to do everything I can to persuade them of our peaceful intent, to remind them that it was the West that refused to use its nuclear monopoly in the forties and fifties for territorial gain and which now proposes 50-percent cut in strategic ballistic missiles and the elimination of an entire class of land-based, intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

At the same time, however, they must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom.

…It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable “Screwtape Letters,” wrote: “The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”

Well, because these “quiet men” do not “raise their voices,” because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making “their final territorial demand,” some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority.

While America’s military strength is important, let me add here that I’ve always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.

…Whittaker Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a witness to one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote that the crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second oldest faith, first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, “Ye shall be as gods.”

The Western World can answer this challenge, he wrote, “but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism’s faith in Man.”

President Reagan knew that, one day, the struggle against Marxist Ideology would not just be waged externally, against foreign enemies, but internally, against domestic ones, as well…bureaucrats who would give away our very sovereignty for perceived political expediency. As we have seen in the ongoing Middle East Islamic Fundamentalist Revolution, known as Arab Spring, and, more recently, President Obama and Sec. Kerry’s bungling of Syria and Iran, our enemies, like Vladimir Putin, love this present administration, who are more than willing to “negotiate” with their new-found “friends”.

And, much like the small town fellow, who gets conned into a three-card monte game on the sidewalks of New York, the deck is stacked against us.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Veterans Day 2013

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Veterans Day

Veterans Day was formerly known as Armistice Day, and wasoriginally set aside as a U.S. legal holiday to honor the end of World War I, which took place on November 11, 1918. In legislation that was passed in 1938, November 11 was “dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day.'” As such, this new legal holiday honored World War I veterans.

In 1954, after World War II and the Korean War, the 83rd U.S. Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, changed the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting the word “Veterans.” With the approval of this legislation on June 1, 1954, Nov. 11 became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

In 1968, the Uniforms Holiday Bill created three-day weekends for federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays: Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. Under this bill, Veterans Day was moved to the last Monday of October. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holiday on its original date. The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on Oct. 25, 1971.

Finally on September 20, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed a law which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of Nov. 11, beginning in 1978. Since then, the Veterans Day holiday has been observed on Nov. 11.

In my research for today’s blog, I came across a speech that explains the significance of this day, far better than I ever could.

On Veterans Day, 1985, at Arlington Cemetery, President Ronald Reagan said the following,

…We are gathered at the National Cemetery, which provides a final resting place for the heroes who have defended our country since the Civil War. This amphitheater, this place for speeches, is more central to this cemetery than it first might seem apparent, for all we can ever do for our heroes is remember them and remember what they did — and memories are transmitted through words.

Sometime back I received in the name of our country the bodies of four marines who had died while on active duty. I said then that there is a special sadness that accompanies the death of a serviceman, for we’re never quite good enough to them-not really; we can’t be, because what they gave us is beyond our powers to repay. And so, when a serviceman dies, it’s a tear in the fabric, a break in the whole, and all we can do is remember.

It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired. But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives — the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. And all we can do is remember.

…There’s always someone who is remembering for us. No matter what time of year it is or what time of day, there are always people who come to this cemetery, leave a flag or a flower or a little rock on a headstone. And they stop and bow their heads and communicate what they wished to communicate. They say, “Hello, Johnny,” or “Hello, Bob. We still think of you. You’re still with us. We never got over you, and we pray for you still, and we’ll see you again. We’ll all meet again.” In a way, they represent us, these relatives and friends, and they speak for us as they walk among the headstones and remember. It’s not so hard to summon memory, but it’s hard to recapture meaning.

And the living have a responsibility to remember the conditions that led to the wars in which our heroes died. Perhaps we can start by remembering this: that all of those who died for us and our country were, in one way or another, victims of a peace process that failed; victims of a decision to forget certain things; to forget, for instance, that the surest way to keep a peace going is to stay strong. Weakness, after all, is a temptation — it tempts the pugnacious to assert themselves — but strength is a declaration that cannot be misunderstood. Strength is a condition that declares actions have consequences. Strength is a prudent warning to the belligerent that aggression need not go unanswered.

Peace fails when we forget what we stand for. It fails when we forget that our Republic is based on firm principles, principles that have real meaning, that with them, we are the last, best hope of man on Earth; without them, we’re little more than the crust of a continent. Peace also fails when we forget to bring to the bargaining table God’s first intellectual gift to man: common sense. Common sense gives us a realistic knowledge of human beings and how they think, how they live in the world, what motivates them. Common sense tells us that man has magic in him, but also clay. Common sense can tell the difference between right and wrong. Common sense forgives error, but it always recognizes it to be error first.

We endanger the peace and confuse all issues when we obscure the truth; when we refuse to name an act for what it is; when we refuse to see the obvious and seek safety in Almighty. Peace is only maintained and won by those who have clear eyes and brave minds. Peace is imperiled when we forget to try for agreements and settlements and treaties; when we forget to hold out our hands and strive; when we forget that God gave us talents to use in securing the ends He desires. Peace fails when we forget that agreements, once made, cannot be broken without a price.

Each new day carries within it the potential for breakthroughs, for progress. Each new day bursts with possibilities. And so, hope is realistic and despair a pointless little sin. And peace fails when we forget to pray to the source of all peace and life and happiness. I think sometimes of General Matthew Ridgeway, who, the night before D-day, tossed sleepless on his cot and talked to the Lord and listened for the promise that God made to Joshua: “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

We’re surrounded today by the dead of our wars. We owe them a debt we can never repay. All we can do is remember them and what they did and why they had to be brave for us. All we can do is try to see that other young men never have to join them. Today, as never before, we must pledge to remember the things that will continue the peace. Today, as never before, we must pray for God’s help in broadening and deepening the peace we enjoy. Let us pray for freedom and justice and a more stable world. And let us make a compact today with the dead, a promise in the words for which General Ridgeway listened, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

In memory of those who gave the last full measure of devotion, may our efforts to achieve lasting peace gain strength. And through whatever coincidence or accident of timing, I tell you that a week from now when I am some thousands of miles away, believe me, the memory and the importance of this day will be in the forefront of my mind and in my heart.

Thank you. God bless you all, and God bless America.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Cheney: “I Think Our Friends No Longer Count On Us, No Longer Trust Us and Our Adversaries Don’t Fear Us.”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamabowWhile Obama’s second term circles down the porcelain receptacle, let us take a moment to review his Foreign Policy.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney is still shooting straight from the hip. In an interview yesterday…

He expressed skepticism that the Obama administration would be able to force Iran to comply with demands that it show its nuclear program is peaceful. Asked if military action against Iran was “inevitable,” Cheney said he had “trouble seeing how we’re going to achieve our objective short of that.”

Cheney faulted the Obama White House’s handling of Middle East politics, saying the U.S. presence in the region had been “significantly diminished” in recent years. “I think our friends no longer count on us, no longer trust us and our adversaries don’t fear us,” he said.

As opposed to the before-mentioned wuss,..

On June 17, 1982, President Ronald Wilson Reagan spoke before the United Nations General Assembly Special Session Devoted to Disarmament…

…The record of history is clear: Citizens of the United States resort to force reluctantly and only when they must. Our foreign policy, as President Eisenhower once said, “is not difficult to state. We are for peace first, last, and always for very simple reasons.” We know that only in a peaceful atmosphere, a peace with justice, one in which we can be confident, can America prosper as we have known prosperity in the past, he said.

He said to those who challenge the truth of those words, let me point out, at the end of World War II, we were the only undamaged industrial power in the world. Our military supremacy was unquestioned. We had harnessed the atom and had the ability to unleash its destructive force anywhere in the world. In short, we could have achieved world domination, but that was contrary to the character of our people. Instead, we wrote a new chapter in the history of mankind.

We used our power and wealth to rebuild the war-ravaged economies of the world, both East and West, including those nations who had been our enemies. We took the initiative in creating such international institutions as this United Nations, where leaders of good will could come together to build bridges for peace and prosperity.

America has no territorial ambitions. We occupy no countries, and we have built no walls to lock our people in. Our commitment to self-determination, freedom, and peace is the very soul of America. That commitment is as strong today as it ever was.

The United States has fought four wars in my lifetime. In each, we struggled to defend freedom and democracy. We were never the aggressors. America’s strength and, yes, her military power have been a force for peace, not conquest; for democracy, not despotism; for freedom, not tyranny. Watching, as I have, succeeding generations of American youth bleed their lives onto far-flung battlefields to protect our ideals and secure the rule of law, I have known how important it is to deter conflict. But since coming to the Presidency, the enormity of the responsibility of this office has made my commitment even deeper. I believe that responsibility is shared by all of us here today.

On our recent trip to Europe, my wife, Nancy, told me of a bronze statue, 22 feet high, that she saw on a cliff on the coast of France. The beach at the base of the cliff is called Saint Laurent, but countless American family Bibles have written it in on the flyleaf and know it as Omaha Beach. The pastoral quiet of that French countryside is in marked contrast to the bloody violence that took place there on a June day 38 years ago when the Allies stormed the Continent. At the end of just one day of battle, 10,500 Americans were wounded, missing, or killed in what became known as the Normandy landing.

The statue atop that cliff is called “The Spirit of American Youth Rising From the Waves.” Its image of sacrifice is almost too powerful to describe.

The pain of war is still vivid in our national memory. It sends me to this special session of the United Nations eager to comply with the plea of Pope Paul VI when he spoke in this chamber nearly 17 years ago. “If you want to be brothers,” His Holiness said, “let the arms fall from your hands.” Well, we Americans yearn to let them go. But we need more than mere words, more than empty promises before we can proceed.

We look around the world and see rampant conflict and aggression. There are many sources of this conflict — expansionist ambitions, local rivalries, the striving to obtain justice and security. We must all work to resolve such discords by peaceful means and to prevent them from escalation.

In the nuclear era, the major powers bear a special responsibility to ease these sources of conflict and to refrain from aggression. And that’s why we’re so deeply concerned by Soviet conduct. Since World War II, the record of tyranny has included Soviet violation of the Yalta agreements leading to domination of Eastern Europe, symbolized by the Berlin Wall — a grim, gray monument to repression that I visited just a week ago. It includes the takeovers of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Afghanistan; and the ruthless repression of the proud people of Poland. Soviet-sponsored guerrillas and terrorists are at work in Central and South America, in Africa, the Middle East, in the Caribbean, and in Europe, violating human rights and unnerving the world with violence. Communist atrocities in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere continue to shock the free world as refugees escape to tell of their horror.

…Eleanor Roosevelt, one of our first ambassadors to this body, reminded us that the high-sounding words of tyrants stand in bleak contradiction to their deeds. “Their promises,” she said, “are in deep contrast to their performances.”

My country learned a bitter lesson in this century: The scourge of tyranny cannot be stopped with words alone. So, we have embarked on an effort to renew our strength that had fallen dangerously low. We refuse to become weaker while potential adversaries remain committed to their imperialist adventures.

My people have sent me here today to speak for them as citizens of the world, which they truly are, for we Americans are drawn from every nationality represented in this chamber today. We understand that men and women of every race and creed can and must work together for peace. We stand ready to take the next steps down the road of cooperation through verifiable arms reduction.

Agreements on arms control and disarmament can be useful in reinforcing peace; but they’re not magic. We should not confuse the signing of agreements with the solving of problems. Simply collecting agreements will not bring peace. Agreements genuinely reinforce peace only when they are kept. Otherwise we’re building a paper castle that will be blown away by the winds of war.

Now, compare that to President Barack Hussein Obama’s speech before the General Assembly of the UN, on September 25,, 2012, after the massacre of 4 brave Americans by Muslim Terrorists at the U.S, Embassy Compound in Benghazi on 9/11/12…

…In every country, there are those who find different religious beliefs threatening; in every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask themselves how much they’re willing to tolerate freedom for others.

That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.

It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well — for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we are a country that has welcomed people of every race and every faith. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country. We not only respect the freedom of religion, we have laws that protect individuals from being harmed because of how they look or what they believe. We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them.

I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video. And the answer is enshrined in our laws: Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech.

Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. As President of our country and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day — (laughter) — and I will always defend their right to do so. (Applause.)

…The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.  But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.  (Applause.)

Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims and Shiite pilgrims.  It’s time to heed the words of Gandhi:  “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.”  (Applause.)  Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them.  That is what America embodies, that’s the vision we will support.

Of course, the story Obama told about a stupid Youtube Video causing the Benghazi Massacre was nothing but a lie, told to cover up the incompetent Foreign Policy of Obama and his Administration.

Twice now, Barack Hussein Obama has taken an oath to protect us from “enemies foreign and domestic”.

As we have painfully found out, all of Obama’s promises have expiration dates…usually the moment he makes them.

I miss having an actual American President.

Until He Comes,

KJ